SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Americans began the 20th century in bustles and bowler hats and ended it in velour sweatsuits and flannel shirts—the most radical shift in dress standards in human history. At the center of this sartorial revolution was business casual, a genre of dress that broke the last bastion of formality—office attire—to redefine the American wardrobe.
Born in Silicon Valley in the early 1980s, business casual consists of khaki pants, sensible shoes, and button-down collared shirts. By the time it was mainstream, in the 1990s, it flummoxed HR managers and employees alike. “Welcome to the confusing world of business casual,” declared a fashion writer for the Chicago Tribune in 1995. With time and some coaching, people caught on. Today, though, the term “business casual” is nearly obsolete for describing the clothing of a workforce that includes many who work from home in yoga pants, put on a clean T-shirt for a Skype meeting, and don’t always go into the office.
The life and impending death of business casual demonstrates broader shifts in American culture and business: Life is less formal; the concept of “going to the office” has fundamentally changed; American companies are now more results-oriented than process-oriented. The way this particular style of fashion originated and faded demonstrates that cultural change results from a tangle of seemingly disparate and ever-evolving sources: technology, consumerism, labor, geography, demographics. Better yet, cultural change can start almost anywhere and by almost anyone—scruffy computer programmers included.
The answer, apparently, is Nerds! NERDS!!
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday May 27 2017, @03:30AM
In my experience, it has mostly to do with tradition and background.
"The suits" do it, because they always have. It's what their superiors did/do, and it's what their superiors expect them to do around them. The basic message is: if you want to move up the chain, dress like the people above you. And, like turtles all the way down, it used to be suits all the way up.
There are exceptions everywhere, and I definitely have been in a room where "dressing down" was a power play by the man at the top - he didn't wear ties, and his staff made sure to tell even visitors to not go "suit" around him - in this way he put lots of people out of their comfort zone by wearing jeans and plain shirts.
🌻🌻 [google.com]